Currently, the Big Ten Conference, a “Power Five” NCAA Division I college sports conference, is a misnomer. That’s because the Big Ten, which actually had ten full-member institutions for two periods in its history, first from 1917 to 1946, and then from 1950 to 1989, currently has 14 full member institutions.
The current composition of the Big Ten consists of the ten member universities that were full conference members prior to the expansion of the conference: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, and Wisconsin, plus four universities that have joined the Big Ten during the last three decades: Maryland, Nebraska, Penn State, and Rutgers.
With future college conference realignment a possibility, I’m going to lay out a vision for what a 24-team Big Ten Conference might look like.
Adding ten new full-member institutions to the Big Ten would obviously alter the American college sports landscape in a very significant way and likely give the Big Ten the largest fan base of any college sports conference. Furthermore, expanding the Big Ten to 24 member institutions would likely require the Big Ten to expand its already large TV broadcasting footprint, which already includes its own cable channel (the Big Ten Network, which is a joint venture of Fox and the Big Ten Conference) and television contracts with major over-the-air and cable networks with national reach.
The current Big Ten geographical base is centered in the Great Lakes region, with ten of the current 14 member institutions located in states in the Great Lakes region. Only Nebraska, Iowa, Maryland, and Rutgers are located in states that do not border one or more of the Great Lakes. This results in the Big Ten’s current geographical footprint stretching from the Great Plains to the Mid-Atlantic region. A 24-team Big Ten would likely have an even larger geographical footprint.
In my proposal for a 24-team Big Ten, the service academies that currently have NCAA Division I athletic programs, the U.S. Military Academy (Army), the U.S. Naval Academy (Navy), and the U.S. Air Force Academy (Air Force) would all join the Big Ten. This would give the Big Ten an even deeper foothold in the Mid-Atlantic region (the Military Academy is located in West Point, New York, and the Naval Academy is located in Annapolis, Maryland), and give the Big Ten its first institution in the Interior West region of the country (the Air Force Academy is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado). Furthermore, the service academies have national fan bases due to their association with the U.S. Armed Forces, and, with the Big Ten’s national television broadcasting footprint, adding the service academies to the Big Ten would likely be a major boost to the conference as a whole.
An interesting candidate for admission to the Big Ten would be North Dakota State University (NDSU). Although located in a state with less than a million residents, NDSU has one of the best college football teams in the country, having won many national championships at the Division I FCS level and, before moving up to FCS, the Division II level. If NDSU were to move up to the Division I FBS level, adding NDSU as a full Big Ten member would add a strong football program to the Big Ten and expand the Big Ten’s footprint in the Great Plains region. However, NDSU would seem, from a geographic standpoint, somewhat out of place in the Big Ten unless another institution from the Dakotas were to be added to the Big Ten. Adding an institution in South Dakota to the Big Ten would make logical sense, and one candidate for admission to the Big Ten would be South Dakota State University (SDSU). SDSU would immediately have rivalries with NDSU and Nebraska as a Big Ten member, and adding both NDSU and SDSU would fully expand the Big Ten’s geographical footprint into the Dakotas.
Another way that the Big Ten could expand its geographical footprint would be to expand into New England. One candidate for a New England-based Big Ten institution would be the University of Connecticut (UConn). Adding UConn as a full Big Ten member would be of benefit to the Big Ten for two main reasons. I’ve already mentioned the first one (expanding the Big Ten into New England), so the second main reason why adding UConn would benefit the Big Ten is because of UConn’s legendary women’s basketball program. Adding UConn to the Big Ten would boost the conference in regards to women’s basketball, not just by adding a powerful program to the Big Ten women’s basketball ranks, but also because it would likely boost other Big Ten women’s basketball programs’ recruiting efforts.
Another way that the Big Ten could expand its geographical footprint would be to expand its footprint into the South. While whether or not Missouri is considered a Southern state has long been a debatable topic, adding the University of Missouri to the Big Ten would make logical sense. Missouri already has a non-conference rivalry in men’s basketball with founding Big Ten member Illinois, which would immediately become an in-conference rivalry in many sports if Missouri were to become a full Big Ten member.
Yet another way that the Big Ten could expand would be to add schools in states that already have at least one Big Ten member institution. Not counting Navy, which I’ve already mentioned in this blog post, three candidates for admission to the Big Ten from states that already have at least one full Big Ten member include the University of Notre Dame, Iowa State University, and Illinois State University. Notre Dame, currently an independent in football and an ACC member in most other college sports, already has an associate Big Ten membership in men’s ice hockey. However, if Notre Dame were to become a full Big Ten member, it would immediately have in-conference rivalries with several Big Ten institutions, something that Notre Dame largely lacks as an ACC member. Iowa State, which is currently almost as geographically out of place in the Big XII Conference as Notre Dame is in the ACC, already has a non-conference rivalry with in-state rival Iowa, which would become an in-conference rivalry if Iowa State were to join the Big Ten. At first glance, Illinois State would seem out of place in the Big Ten despite being in the geographical heartland of the conference, but, when looking at a 24-team Big Ten as potentially having four divisions, adding Illinois State starts to make more sense. A 24-team Big Ten with four divisions would likely have a northern, southern, western, and eastern division. The Big Ten West in a 24-team conference could feature Air Force, Nebraska, NDSU, SDSU, Iowa, and Iowa State. The Big Ten East in a 24-team conference could feature Army, Navy, Maryland, Penn State, Rutgers, and UConn. The Big Ten North in a 24-team conference could feature Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State. That would make Illinois State a logical fit for a Big Ten South that would include Missouri, Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana, and Purdue.
The odds of this particular proposal for a 24-team Big Ten Conference becoming reality are extremely unlikely for a multitude of reasons, but, nonetheless, I think this proposal for a 24-team Big Ten Conference, which would add Army, Navy, Air Force, NDSU, SDSU, Iowa State, Illinois State, Missouri, Notre Dame, and UConn as full Big Ten members, is quite an interesting prospect.
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